


Silver and Cold

by hawkeward



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Addiction, F/M, Lyrium, Templar Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeward/pseuds/hawkeward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every morning, he watches as she slips further away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver and Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the AFI [song of the same name](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BguZZ3rGKe0) (video tw: suicide).

Every morning, he watches as she adds the lyrium to her cup. 

She can no longer hide the tremor in her hands, or the way her eyes linger hungrily as she shakes the final drops from the vial. She stirs methodically; the silver trail follows the spoon in a delicate, fading spiral through the dark liquid.

After every battle, he finds it more difficult to knit her injured flesh whole. It was as easy as thought only a few months ago; now the magic bends and slides off her, writhing in his grip. The wounds no longer close to pink and healthy skin, but remain gray and sickly, liable to reopen and susceptible to infection. The effort of even such a poor healing leaves him drained and gasping as he fumbles for bandages he never needed before. 

Through every night, he can feel her sleeping mind wander deeper and deeper into the Fade. He no longer disturbs her when his tainted dreams leave him thrashing against the sheets of their shared bed. When he drags himself, sweating, from the clutches of his nightmares, she lies so still beside him that he must lay a hand on her chest to convince himself she still breathes. In the morning, she stumbles downstairs still half-dreaming, losing her train of thought and staring bleary-eyed into nothingness until he guides her to the breakfast table.

In every kiss, the taste of it is stronger on her mouth—dusty rock laced with a mineral tang that sets his teeth aching, and the antiseptic aftertaste of concentrator agent. The smell of her skin casts his mind back to dank caves shot through with veins of glowing poison and twisted creatures scrabbling in the dark. He imagines that her every pore oozes the stuff, that if he swept his hand over her bare flesh it would come away coated in cloying silver. 

He can no longer summon the strength to object, to enter another of their countless circular arguments—arguments that only ever grant him the protective set of her jaw, the too-tight clench of her fingers around fragile porcelain. They both know the reasons and the risks, the ring of pewter as she sets down the spoon. Every morning, she smiles at him over the rim of the cup. 

Every morning, she drinks, and he looks away.


End file.
